Luck of the Irish

Greetings! I got back to London Sunday morning (March 29th) at around 10 a.m. and was greeted in South Kensington by my mom, Dianne, and Kathy! I was so excited to see them. Its going to be a great week with them visiting, but for now I'll tell you about my weekend in Ireland.

Thursday, March 26

After class, I ran to check my mail and to my surprise there was a huge package with my name on it. It was the best way to start my trip, combos, cheezits, and Cheetos! Yummmm. Once I finished opening my package, I waited for the girls to get back from class. I had packed the night before and was so glad for it! Once the other girls in the flat got back, we rushed along to the tube to catch the bus (gosh, I miss driving!). We got to the platform in the tube stop just to wait and wait and wait for our tube to arrive. We realized it was taking way longer than we thought, which as you may guess, was going to make us late for the bus. We arrived in Fulham Broadway about 7 minutes after our bus departed. We were slightly concerned, but knew that bus runs every thirty minutes. We patiently waited for the next one to arrive and crossed our fingers that it had open seats! When it arrived, there were plenty of seats and we were off to the airport! We got their in plenty of time and boarded our plane to Dublin! It was the shortest flight we've had yet. It felt like we had just gotten on the plane when they announced to turn off everything we were landing. We are yet to have a smooth landing, but as long as we land, I'm happy. We got a bus into the city and attempted to find our hostel. Needless to say, after countless directions and 20 minutes of walking, we got a cab that took us around the corner from where we were. I guess you could say we kind of got suckered out of 7 Euros, but oh well, we got there. We settled in for a bit, but went right back out to the Porter House for a porter and live music. (When in Rome, right?) It was a lot of fun and we settled in early for a full day in Dublin tomorrow!

Friday, March 25

Since we had preplanned a little bit for this trip, we knew we wanted to spend one day in the city and one day in the country, which meant we had one day to cram in all the sights in Dublin. Our first destination was the Dublin Castle. We showed up and got our tickets for the guided tour. We had some time to kill so we popped into the gift shop and definitely made a mental note to stop back in after the tour because they had some good stuff. The tour of the castle was a lot of fun and very interesting. The tour guide was very easy to understand. Sometimes people's accents are thick and hard to understand, but this guy was very well spoken and smart. The tour lasted about an hour and then we were off to find trinity College. It was a very pretty campus, but the reason we went was because some of the girls wanted to see the Book of Kells in the library. I didn't participate, but waited for them to finish up so we could grab some lunch. We all ended up eating Subway (very American of us). I've tried really hard to stay away from stuff I can eat in the states, but sometimes with our schedules its the most convenient. We walked to find a Hard Rock Cafe for a girl in our group that wanted to buy something, and then the Jameson Distillery. We walked in and got our ticket, but had about 20 minutes to kill before our tour started. Once again, he went to the gift shop and found some goodies. The smart thing would have been to wait until after the tour to buy something so I wouldn't have to walk around with a bag the whole time. I unfortunately didn't make that decision, but that was just a brain fart on my part. We had a guided tour that started with a ten minute video of John Jameson's story. It really caught my attention and our tour guide did too! We walked from room to room learning the process that the whiskey goes through to become Jameson. The rooms were set up to make you feel like you were really in the distillery many years ago. Some of the girls in the group even got to volunteer at the end of the tour to try different types of whiskey from around the world, including Jack Daniels. It was a fun tour and at the end we all got a mixed drink. We couldn't stay and relax for very long though because next was Guinness! All seven of us left and walked to find the Guinness plant. It was a slightly different experience than Jameson because it was a self guided tour through five floors of stuff! It started off with the ingredients and then the process and even the business side of Guinness. Every floor was fun, but my favorite was the very top level. It was the Galaxy Bar, but all the walls were made of class and gave a beautiful view of Dublin. It was super crowded though. We got to enjoy another drink, which was a pint of Guinness. The girls and I finally found a small space on the floor and crammed most of us into it so we could enjoy the view and the drink. A little relaxation was needed after a full day of sight seeing. Next, we were off to dinner. We stopped at a local pub and enjoyed a great dinner before we settled in for the night. It was a great day. We got to see so much! The city was very pretty, and we had awesome weather. It was a great day for walking and sighting seeing, and we did plenty of both!

Saturday, March 27

Saturday was our day in the country side! I knew if we were going to Ireland I had to see the country side because everyone talks about how beautiful it is. I can definitely say I wasn't disappointed. The tour bus we booked picked us up from our hostel around 9:45, and we were off to the Wicklow Mountains. Our tour guide would tell us stuff while he was driving, but he would also pull over on the side of the road and tell us even more about certain landmarks. Some of them were interesting and some were kind of creepy. He would also let us get out at the most beautiful places to take pictures. I must say that I was quite chilly up on the mountain, but thankfully it didn't rain. I can handle cold, but cold and rainy is a different story. Our first stop we made looked over the Ireland port. It was super foggy so we couldn't see it that great, but it was still gorgeous. Our bus driver had hot tea and coffee for us as a little pit stop. He was the nicest old man and knew his stuff, too. We all got back in to warm up and headed to a lake for another great view of Dublin's countryside. We stopped on the side of the road and walked about 20 yards through some rock and mud (didn't realize we would be off roading it). Once we got through that stuff you could see this beautiful lake in the valley of the mountains. It was an awesome sight to see. We spent some time soaking in the scenery and headed back to the bus for our next stop. We stopped at another lake, but this was the Guinness Lake. The Guinness family owns a lake house right beside it. It was an absolutely beautiful place. Probably the coldest too! It was sooooo windy! We took some pictures but headed back to the bus before the wind knocked us over! Our bus driver was pretty experienced at this so our next stop was a place with a bathroom and also happened to be the highest town in Ireland. There was also a church there so the girls and I decided that those church goers have to be the closest people to God in Ireland. We didn't stay there very long and loaded back into the bus and headed to a beautiful waterfall. Our bus driver let us out to walked along the side of the waterfall. It wasn't necessarily what I was expecting for a waterfall because it was so small, but a phenomenal view. There were sheep on the hill with a sheep farm below. It was very Dublin. We walked back to where our bus was and headed to one of our last stops which was LUNCH! It was definitely a monopoly though! They took us to this little town to eat and of course we are pretty tired and hungry. They tell us you can eat in this restaurant or you can have snacks at this coffee house. We definitely went in for the real stuff, but it was 15 Euros a plate! (like $20!) I mean don't get me wrong it was really good, but the price was so steep. We finished up eating and went to a little souvenir shop then back to the bus for our last stop in Glendalough.
Glendalough in Irish means city between two lakes, and that's exactly what it was. It was founded by Saint Kevin as an early medieval monastery in the early 6th century. It was destroyed by English troops in 1398. There were a ton of grave stones everywhere with some remains of their churches and the only one completely still standing was Saint Kevin's Church. Our bus driver toured us through this area (on foot that is). Once he told us a little about it, he let us loose to go explore the area. He told us how to get to another water fall and a walking trail that would take us along the lakes. We took off and explored for a couple of hours. I just couldn't get over how incredible this place was. The beginning of the tour was a slight let down because everything was brown (still beautiful, but brown). I should have expected the brownness because that weekend was the first day of spring, but once I got to Glendalough, I got a dose of exactly what I was expecting. The weather was beautiful as well. We could have asked for better weather for that time of the year. It seemed to be very rare that we didn't get rain either. The bus driver was pretty much shocked. We told him it was because it was our friend Dawn's birthday. After exploring the area for a while, we headed back to the bus and went back to our hostel. I was going to try enjoy the scenery on the way back, but my eye's had different intentions. I definitely slept the entire way back (anyone who has traveled in a car with me, isn't surprised). We got back to the hostel at 5:45 and chilled out for a while. It was quite a long day in the mountains, but no complaints at all! I loved it. Since it was Dawn's birthday, we headed to dinner. We found out pretty quick though that if you don't have reservations, the restaurants won't seat you until like 9:00. We had worked up an appetite by that point so we decided to do the tourist thing and eat at Thunder Road Cafe (pretty much like a Hard Rock Cafe). The food was good, and we got them to sing happy birthday to Dawn. We all really enjoyed our entire day.
It was a great weekend in Dublin. I definitely wish it could have been a longer trip, but it was nice to be able to see it for the amount of time we did. I want to come back in the summer time though! I think it would be 10 times prettier in the summer, and I can't hardly imagine that because what we saw was so gorgeous. It would be unbelievable.
We packed up our stuff that next morning and headed to the airport. It was another short flight back, which I was thankful for becuase I was so anxious to see my mom, Dianne, and Kathy!

more to come later........